There's no doubt that Rondo is padding his stats, but does this
specific type of stat-padding really qualify as a violation of
basketball ethics?

Stat-padding is bad because it's inherently selfish, but at the
same time assists are inherently unselfish — we even use lack of
assists when talking about scorers like Kobe
Bryant and Carmelo
Anthony as proof of selfishness.

So we're left with yet another Rondo paradox. Is he so unselfish
that he's selfish? Does focusing on assists rather than points
dissolve the inherent unselfishness of assists?